Stormwatching
by HecateA
Summary: It's not that Kingsley doesn't like watching the rain—he just doesn't like what it does to Sirius. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Hogwarts: Assignment 8, Muggle Studies Task #2 Write about someone who is/feels trapped

**Warnings:** Depression

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**Stacked with:** Hogwarts; Fall Bingo; Shipping Wars

**Individual Challenge(s): **Black Ribbon; Black Ribbon Redux; Gryffindor MC; Slytherin MC; Bow Before the Blacks; Seeds; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Trope it Up A (Enemies to Friends to Lovers); Trope it Up C (Secret Relationship); Themes & Things A (Nature); Themes & Things B (Captivity); Themes & Things C (Blanket); Themes & Things D (Sweater); Ethnic & Present; True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; Flags & Ribbons; Letter of the Day; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Word Count:**

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Kingsley Shacklebolt/Sirius Black (Starry Storms)

**List (Prompt): **Fall Medium 1 (Rain)

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**Stormwatching **

Tonks updated Kingsley when he got to the house. She'd basically been waiting for him in the entrance with the kind of look she had when he came into the office and she had an urgent file to update him on.

"It's bad," she said, wrapping her oversized cardigan around herself. "Remus couldn't get to him."

Kingsley had been drying his shoes on the carpet by the door, but then he sighed and just kicked them off. He shrugged off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door.

"Okay, I'm here now," Kingsley said.

He knew Grimmauld Place like the back of his hand and made his way across the house, avoiding the creaky floor planks instinctually. He ran into a very tired-looking Remus on the second floor landing. The bags under his eyes were deep as the Full Moon approached.

"I couldn't get to him," Remus informed him.

"So I heard," Kingsley said.

"I promise I tried," Remus said. "And he tried too…"

"I believe you," Kingsley said. He gathered up his braids in a ponytail behind his head and sighed. "Where is he?"

"The guest bedroom you usually use, he's been sleeping there more and more now," Remus said. "He was… by the window."

"By the window," Kingsley said. "By the… oh, Merlin. Alright, I'll go."

He clapped Remus' shoulder on his way up the stairs and navigated to what he'd come to think of as _his _bedroom in Grimmauld Place—a smallish room with maple furniture, covered with tapestries mapping out old enchanted German forests. Kingsley had left a few shirts, a bottle of cologne, and the novel he was trying to read for fun around the room. But the best part of the room, the reason he'd claimed it as his own, was the massive window which opened onto a tiny porch.

Sirius was curled up against the wall, forehead resting against the glass door. He was wearing one of Kingsley's sweaters, which would have been fine if that wasn't what he'd been wearing the last three times he'd seen him.

"Sirius?" Kingsley asked.

"Hey," Sirius said without looking away. "How was work?"

"Full of paperwork," Kingsley said. "How was your day?"

"It's been raining and thundering and lightning," Sirius said.

"Yeah," Kingsley said. "I always liked watching storms when I was a kid, my Dad got it and he used to let me stay up late to watch them…"

Sirius didn't say anything so Kingsley just sat by the patio door with him and looked at the storm. There was still something comforting about the pitter-patter of raindrops, and the way you could count beats between lightning bolts and claps of thunder and have it mean something.

He took Sirius' hand and kissed the knuckles. When he let go of it, Sirius' fingertips went to rest against the glass.

"I just wanted to go outside today," Sirius said quietly.

"Outside?" Kingsley asked quietly.

"I didn't go yesterday because Remus was sick and I spent the day with him, and then today I couldn't go because the weather was shitty and you told me that all the electricity and meteorological disturbances in the air can weaken the wards and protection spells you've put on the porch, so I shouldn't go out…"

"Yeah, you shouldn't go out," Kingsley nodded.

Sirius sighed and readjusted his lean against the porch.

"I haven't been outside in 62 hours," Sirius said. "And I asked Molly and she said that the weather won't let up all week."

"Hey," Kingsley said. "Hey, you're okay. I've got the day off tomorrow, we'll do something interesting, okay?"

"I'm not going to chain you up in here with me on your _one _day off," Sirius said quietly.

"I _want _to spend time with you, Black," Kingsley said. "We'll think of something to do."

"There's nothing to do in this house," Sirius said looking outside.

"We'll make something to do," Kingsley said. "I can go get something, pick up anything you want to eat…"

Sirius shot him a look.

"I would give any amount of puzzles, books, board games, food, music, and films for a single breath of fresh air—even if it has to be smoggy, polluted, London city air."

He shrivelled back and took a deep breath, running a hand over his face and through his hair.

"I'm sorry," Sirius said. "It's not your fault, you charmed the patio for me, that's more than enough and… I'm sorry. You don't deserve my moods."

"Hey," Kingsley said. He put his hand on Sirius' knee and squeezed. "I don't mind watching the storms until they pass. If I pull the blanket off my bed, are you going to let me snuggle up with you?"

"Yeah," Sirius said quietly. "Yeah, I can do that."


End file.
